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Might the ICEman cometh less? The first work site raid by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service under its new boss is signaling changes for the future of workplace enforcement.

Janet Napolitano (photo, right), the new secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where ICE resides, demanded a review of all work site enforcement after ICE agents raided the Yamato Engine Specialists 1990 Ltd. plant in Bellingham, Washington, in February. The agents arrested 28 illegal immigrant workers and began the process to deport them.

It was the first work site raid since the Obama administration took office in January. During his campaign, President Barack Obama called for immigration reform and a closer look at such raids. He specifically said he wanted workplace enforcement priorities to shift to unscrupulous employers, such as those running sweatshops.

Napolitano's February 26 directive gave hope to critics of the raids. Immigration law professor Jennifer Gordon of Fordham School of Law says she believes the raid was a "leftover" from the old administration. "Hopefully, they will call a moratorium on workplace raids and then work on complete immigration reform," Gordon speculates.

But Homeland Security spokeswoman Amy Kudwa says Napolitano stopped short of halting the controversial actions. Napolitano ordered the review, according to Kudwa, because agents did not clear the raid with the "front office [in Washington, D.C.]. As a former U.S. attorney [in Arizona], the secretary knows what the procedure should be. She wants to know why the process broke down," Kudwa says.

Napolitano told Congress at a hearing in Washington, D.C., after the raid that workplace enforcement should continue, but with a new emphasis. "In my view," she said, "it needs to focus on employers who intentionally and knowingly exploit the illegal labor market."

Napolitano is also a former governor of Arizona who had to deal with immigration issues in that state. Once a crusading lawyer on behalf of illegal aliens, she is now considered a moderate. As Kudwa puts it, Homeland Security "has limited resources, so it needs to focus on finding and deporting criminal aliens and on employers first."

A February 2009 report commissioned by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., suggests that ICE has wandered from that mission. The so-called federal fugitive operations program was established to apprehend and remove dangerous fugitive aliens who pose a threat to the community, according to the report. But ICE instead has focused on nondangerous workers. The authors reported that 73 percent of the nearly 97,000 people arrested by ICE agents between 2003 and early 2008 "were unauthorized immigrants without criminal records."

Josie Gonzalez, a 30-year immigration lawyer in Pasadena, says her hope is that Napolitano will refocus ICE's efforts and resources back onto criminals and terrorists. "It is grossly unpopular to jail people whose only crime is to seek employment to feed themselves and their families," she says.

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